Jack Horwood doesn’t do families. Or Christmas. From the time his mother sold him to her pimp to the moment he walked out on the man he loved, Christmas has always been about change and painful choices. This year seems no different. Helping Daniel and Nico recover from their imprisonment and hunting down those responsible puts Jack in a frame of mind he doesn’t want to inflict on anyone. Least of all Gareth and the tentative relationship they’ve started to rebuild.

But Gareth, for whom Christmas is all about new beginnings, won’t let Jack take the easy way out. He makes him face his ghosts instead. Even when said ghosts invade their bedroom.When Daniel’s parents are found, Jack is determined to settle the matter without involving Daniel at all. But fate decrees otherwise, and it’s Gareth who helps him finally understand that the strongest bonds are those forged together. Once he gets that, Jack can step up and make a decision designed to lay his ghosts to rest—for good.

4 out of 4 stars

Ghosts is the follow up novella to Job Hunt the first book in the Power of Zero series. It is best to read them in order as Ghosts directly follows the events in Job Hunt.

Job Hunt was one of my favorite debut books last year, so I've anxiously been waiting for the follow up. While Ghosts isn't packed with action, it is filled with a lot of detail in a novella length story. Ghosts is almost more of a wrap up book than a major move forward in the series. It pulled together some of Jack's backstory that we didn't know, added more detail to both Daniel and Nico's characters, and it continually shows the strength and love in Gareth and Jack's relationship.

Ghosts continues with the storyline of what happened with the boys, Nico and Daniel and gives some additional closure to their story. We also get some sweet, fun moments mixed in with their dark, hurt-filled moments as they move towards healing. All in all Ghosts was a good addition to the series, it just didn't move the characters very far forward timeline wise. It did, however, give the main characters some growth to build on in future books in this series.

If you read the first book in the series, Ghosts is a must read to catch up with this excellent characters. If you haven't read the first book, you need to grab it and give the author a try because the series is very worth it.

You don’t greet your new boss dressed like an underage rent boy. But when Jack Horwood—ace hacker and ex-MI6 operative—opens the door to Gareth Flynn, he's too busy to worry over details like that. And anyway, his potential new boss is his former Commanding Officer – the same guy Jack has had a crush on since he was seventeen. So he should understand, right?

When he applied for the job in Nancarrow Mining's corporate security division, Jack had hoped for peaceful days repelling cyber attacks. Maybe a bit of corporate espionage on the side. His plans didn't include rescuing abused children, hunting pimps, or dealing with his overly protective and hot-as-hell boss, Gareth Flynn.Walking away is not an option. Jack never takes the easy way out. More than that, meeting Gareth raises old ghosts that Jack needs to put to rest. Rescuing kids. Taking risks. Saving the day. Jack can do all that – but deciding what to do about his attraction to Gareth isn’t the sort of cloak-and-dagger game Jack plays well. Yet Gareth, strong and smart and always on hand when needed, might be Jack’s salvation.

ABOUT JACKIE KESWICK

Jackie Keswick was born behind the Iron Curtain with itchy feet, a bent for rocks and a recurrent dream of stepping off a bus in the middle of nowhere to go home. She’s worked in a hospital and as the only girl with 52 men on an oil rig, spent a winter in Moscow and a summer in Iceland and finally settled in the country of her dreams with her dream team: a husband, a cat, a tandem, a hammer and a laptop.Jackie loves stories about unexpected reunions and second chances, and men who don’t follow the rules when those rules are stupid. She has a thing for green eyes and tight cyclist’s butts and is a great believer in making up soundtracks for everything, including her characters and the cat.And she still hasn’t found the place where the bus stops.